


The Shattering Defect

by MyLittleCornerOfSherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mind Palace, Post-The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLittleCornerOfSherlock/pseuds/MyLittleCornerOfSherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something shatters within Sherlock when he falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shattering Defect

**Author's Note:**

> Johnlock goggles apply.

He hit the sidewalk and Sherlock’s world shattered.  Not just the few random bones that he’d calculated the fall would cost him.  He watched without batting an eye, as the life he’d build with John crumbled amongst John’s pleas of “Let me through!”   Another casualty he had known was coming.  The first (well second) of the war Moriarty had started.  He’d planned it all.  How to survive the fall, how to keep John alive, what it would take to hunt down and eliminate every last trace of Moriarty.  What he hadn’t calculated or planned for was the shattering defect that came with that fall.

He’d stared blankly up and watched John’s face crumple in pain, the crack in his voice as John said his name.  He’d felt John’s fingers on his wrist; a warm, solid, grounding presence against the cold wet rain.  And in that moment, Sherlock had felt something intangible inside him shatter.  An outsider might assume that it was his heart breaking.  But Sherlock knew his heart existed outside his body.  A living, breathing thing named John Watson.  So the “thing” inside him couldn’t be his heart.  He could see that breaking in front of him with his own two unblinking eyes.  He wouldn’t find out what had shattered until later that day.

After Molly had cleaned him up, after he had changed his clothes, assumed his new identity, and gathered his intel, he tried to retreat to his Mind Palace.  It was the one place he’d always felt safe and he needed to go there now, both for a sense of security and to begin the process of preparing himself to go abroad in search of Moriarty’s web.  But instead of finding a place of organized chaos, information and comfort easily accessible to him, there was only rubble.  The crumbling remains of his retreat.  The information was all still there.  Of that he could be sure, but no longer could he find and seek comfort in its familiarity.  It was no longer a haven for his intellect.  He gasped, almost in pain, at the loss.

It took him longer than it should have to realize why his mind palace had shattered upon seeing John that day.  Not only was his heart existing outside his body, but also that intangible, now tangible, thing which made him feel safe.  They were both John Watson.


End file.
